Excerpt from While Paris Laughed Being Pranks: And Passions of the Poet Tricotrin

On the quai de Passy, in Paris, stands an unattractive little cafe with a witty window. A faded announcement in the language of the land informs the observant that "One is Better Off in Here than Opposite." And when one glances opposite, the alternative is - the river.

Without a premonition that he was to discover this humble cafe, so remote from his lodging off the avenue du Maine, monsieur Xavier Mariquot, on an evening of his twenty-fourth summer, bade farewell to the world.

On the table, explaining the motives for his suicide, lay an epistle that he had been revising for some hours. It was directed to a friend, but as Mariquot was an aspiring poet, it was intended primarily for the Press. Now that it was finished and sealed, the cheerfulness induced by its composition deserted him, he reflected wistfully that he himself would never see his pathetic letter in print, and regretted that it could not appear before he died. He wondered whether the public would do justice to his metaphors. Also, he wondered whether the news would be headed "Suicide Of A Poet, " or "Lovers Drown Together." He hoped for the former.

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